❝ A median 60 percent of people in 37 countries, including the U.S., said they lack confidence in the Russian leader’s actions in world affairs, versus 26 percent who said he’s doing a good job. Pew didn’t provide matching statistics for Trump in a survey focused on Russia, but of the 36 countries canvassed on who they trust more, 22, including Germany, France and Japan, trust Putin more than Trump, according to the pollster’s 2017 spring survey.

❝ The survey was conducted Feb. 16 to May 8, before Trump set global markets on edge in August by tweeting threats to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea should the hermit regime threaten U.S. territory with any of its intercontinental ballistic missiles. It also preceded Trump’s decision to sign a bill deepening sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. The Kremlin retaliated by ordering the U.S. to slash staff at its diplomatic missions.

Now that Trump voters have had time to watch their 1-percenter superhero in action I’m forced to continue to rely on the Mencken analysis of decision-making by American consumers, e.g., “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of Americans.”

Believing Trump’s blatant lies, ignorance and bigotry would somehow change things for the better for folks who work for a living in America requires a qualitative leap in gullibility. Even in a land brainwashed by decades of advertising about, say, cigarettes “without a cough in a carload”.

“In the 2012 book “Missing Out,” in a chapter entitled “On Getting Away With It,” psychiatrist Adam Phillips suggested we had, just in the last century, gone from regarding “getting away with it” as immoral — perhaps a forbidden pleasure we might secretly admire, sometimes indulge, but could never approve — to its elevation to a highest-value goal.
In the chapter’s conclusion he writes, “But what if getting away with it was a new moral principle or project? . . . In this new morality — which sounds like a moral game, or a parody of the idea of morality — moral excellence would reside in being able to successfully exempt yourself from rules you have consented to. . . . The Good Person would be replaced by the Impressive Person; and what would impress would be the breaking of rules without punishment. . . . Where once there were the principled, now there would be the opportunists; the clever would displace the pious.” He all but foretold the election of President Trump.” (Sam Waterston) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sam-waterston-when-getting-away-with-it-is-all-trump-cares-about/2017/08/17/8ebb602a-820b-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html

“On September 14, Russia will unleash what may be its largest military exercise since the Cold War. In Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and elsewhere, officials are openly concerned that the “Zapad (‘West’) 2017” drills near their borders will be used as cover for a military attack. (Reuters UK Aug 29, 2017) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-putin-commentary-idUSKCN1B91WN

“Russia offered a plan to the United States for full and immediate move toward normalization — or a restoration of diplomatic ties — between the two countries in the opening weeks of President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a BuzzFeed News report Tuesday.” (CNN 9/13/17) http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/russia-us-state-department/index.html “Asked about the report, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert would neither confirm nor deny its accuracy. Nauert said in general terms that the US and Russia share the goal of improving diplomatic relations between the countries. A Russian official confirmed to CNN that the document was authentic.”
(BuzzFeed): “Besides offering a snapshot of where the Kremlin wanted to move the bilateral relationship, the proposal reveals one of Moscow’s unspoken assumptions — that Trump wouldn’t share the lingering US anger over Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 election and might accept a lightning-fast rapprochement. “It just ignores everything that caused the relationship to deteriorate and pretends that the election interference and the Ukraine crisis never happened,” said Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer on Russia during the George W. Bush administration who also reviewed the document. https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnhudson/russia-sought-a-broad-reset-with-trump-secret-document-shows